


Restoring Order

by WhatWouldLilyDo



Series: Extra Fresh Mints [6]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Drinking with medication, Friends With Benefits, Gray-ace Nursey, Gray-ace character, Lovers to Friends (sort of), M/M, Medication, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks, Pre-diagnosis, Secret Relationship, Undecided Relationship(s), very lowkey background Charmer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatWouldLilyDo/pseuds/WhatWouldLilyDo
Summary: It wasn't really a good day for either of them.Parallel to chapter 9 ofFresh(contains spoilers!!)Nursey gets sick, Dex's worry goes a little too far, and then they go to a volleyball match with Chowder.





	Restoring Order

**Author's Note:**

> Particular warning for an on-screen panic attack.
> 
> I was going to try and get the next chapter of Fresh up before I posted this, but I think it will be another few days before that, and I was getting itchy feet to post this already. Basically there are spoilers in here for future reveals in Fresh, not just the scene this runs parallel to, though it's the sort of spoiler that is not really a spoiler any more? I mean if you got this far you've probably seen the tags so the cat's out the bag.
> 
> On the other hand, you don't need to have read it. All you need to know is that this is set early December of the Frogs' frog year, Nursey and Dex are freshman dormmates, Dex and Caitlin Farmer are cousins who haven't seen each other since before the deaths of (in particular and most relevant for this work) Will's parents, and there are some missing but referenced conversations and text messages between Chowder and the other two, but I think they all get filled in enough to keep you in the loop.

***Nursey***

Derek couldn’t decide if this was an alcohol-induced hallucination or not. “Are you— Are you cleaning again?”

Will jerked up. He probably hadn't expected Derek to be awake, considering that the artificial light in the room told him that it was early evening, but he couldn’t really remember morning or afternoon happening. As he was still in bed, and his head felt like it was going to explode, he decided the most likely explanation was that he had slept through the day.

“Is it bothering you?” Will asked. 

“You were cleaning earlier when I woke up, too. Or I dreamed that. How many times have you cleaned today?”

“If I get rid of the germs, you'll get better.”

“It so doesn't work like that.”

Will ignored him, and carried on scrubbing at the same spot on the wall, like there was a mark he couldn't get out.

“Hey, Dex, chill man.”

Will's hands were shaking when he turned back to Derek. “I've got to do this because of you. What the hell were you thinking?”

“It doesn’t usually matter if I take those pills with alcohol. I told you last night, I must have just drunk a bit too fast. Can you pass that water?” He squinted at his desk until Will moved the bottle closer to him. Then he forced himself to sit up, even though all his muscles protested, and looked at Will. “Have you been out today?”

“I was looking after you.”

“So, no. Fuck’s sake, Will. Go to the Haus for a bit. Or if you really can't leave me alone, at least go get Bitty or Chowder or someone to help you rather than sending yourself crazy with all this cleaning business.”

When he felt like Will might not be listening to him, Derek reached out and ran his thumb along the inside of his wrist until Will nodded. “Okay. I should get you some food, anyway.”

Derek sighed in relief when Will left the room, though he did frown a little when he heard running water. Was that asshole washing his hands because Derek had touched him?

 

***Dex***

 

...1, 2, 3, 4, 5… Soap. Thumb, pointer, middle, ring, little… rub it into the palm. Over the wrists and knuckles. Warm water. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Will tried to level his breathing as he focused on the water running over his hands. Derek was right. He should go and get Bitty before he drove himself insane. Bitty might be able to help him give Derek a sponge bath.  _ No.  _ He groaned. That wasn't the point. Derek didn’t need a sponge bath. He needed food. And Will would just have to not think about what would happen if he got crumbs in the bed.

He ran the soap dispenser under the tap and wiped it off with an antibacterial wipe, then headed out, just about remembering to grab his coat on the way.

It was a good job he had gone outside, he thought, because there were so many more things out here that needed straightening up so that Derek would get better. Will's heart was in his throat, though because how was he ever going to clean up the mess of the streets and line up the wonky trash cans and deal with the wild bush outside the basketball house and still get back to Derek in a good time? What's more he was going to go into the Haus and the spice cabinet would be a mess again and there was nearly always something that had broken there, and he knew, logically, that these things had no correlation with Derek’s fate and yet he couldn't breath over the mere nudge in his brain which tried to tell him to let them go.

“Hi, Dex!”

Will jolted out of his reverie and stared at Chowder, whose steps faltered. He was looking at Will with a wariness that Will might have had the sense to feel bad about if he had been in sounder mind.

“W-What happened?”

“Nursey’s sick.” His throat was still tight and the words struggled to come out. Chowder took half a step backwards.

“Is it flu or something?”

Will sucked in a breath, trying to calm himself down. This was good. He could let Chowder pull him to the Haus and avoid the time consumption of cutting that damn hedge. Just push through it.

“No, he drank with his fucking pills and he's been hungover all day. Nothing's making it better.” Not vacuuming an extra twice, not washing down the door, not resorting Derek’s books into alphabetical order by author surname, then chronology of publication.

“Oh no! And it's pretty late in the day now, too,” Chowder noted. “Were you going to the Haus? You, uh, I don't think you should—”

Will just nodded as Chowder’s talk faded into white noise. His eyes were focused on a scattering of leaves nearby. He would need a rake.

“Dex?” Chowder had still been talking, but now looked at him in concern. “Are we going to go and get Bitty?”

Will didn’t trust his voice because his chest was pounding again, so he just nodded and let Chowder tug gently on his arm and pull him to the Haus.

As they reached the path to the Haus, Will gained a new determination. Derek needed him. Derek needed food, and then a shower and for someone to change his bedding. He stormed through the door, desperate to get Bitty moving before his brain started trying to distract him again.

“Nursey’s sick,” he announced. Bitty blinked at him, so Will hastened to make him see the severity of the situation. “I think he's coming down with something. He's not eaten all day. He's mostly just slept.”

“Oh my. Well let me make some soup.” Bitty hopped off his chair, then eyed Will up. “Do you want to make a flask of that tea he likes?”

Will nodded. That, he could do. He immediately went to the spice cabinet to get out what he needed, and winced.

Bitty let out a sigh behind him. “Those boys. It's got all unorganised again.”

Will knew for a fact that Bitty didn't mind how the spices were arranged as long as he could get to what he needed. Cinnamon was the most likely thing to end up in the wrong place which Will figured was because Bitty used it a lot and put it back anywhere. It seemed that Will's organization hadn't gone as unnoticed as he previously thought, and not only that, but Bitty had guessed he needed something to do that would make him feel better while the soup cooked. With that in mind, Will’s shoulders were tense, but he was too grateful to Bitty to say anything. He didn’t trust his own mouth.

* * *

Finally, Will was on his way back to his dorm with Bitty and some thermos flasks. At first, Bitty had tried to engage him in conversation, but Will's throat still felt tight and he was terrified of saying something irrational. The closer they got to his block, the higher his compulsion to ask Bitty to help him give Derek a sponge bath was. So, he bit down on his tongue, a little too literally, and he picked up the pace.

 

***Nursey***

 

While Will was out, Derek curled on his side, flicked through his phone notifications and thought about the intensity with which Will was reacting to his hangover. They weren't a couple. Friends with benefits, they had decided on, but the benefits had been cuddling rather than sex with the exception of that first time. The trouble was, he really felt like he wanted everything they could be. Such a want terrified him. At first he had hoped it would fade when the desire was satisfied (surely he would just confirm to himself that it wasn't the big deal everyone made of it?). Then, he tried to come to terms with the identity of gray-ace. He even had himself convinced that this was okay for a long while. It may have been a more blurry label (a gray area in more than just name) but at least it was a specific label he could understand, and others could as well. He should have known that wouldn't last forever. Too much latent paranoia remained regarding doctors and their insistence on measuring ‘normal’ against sex drive and his dissatisfaction with any one word to describe his feelings flared up again.

Will's reaction was too much. It was an indication that whatever this thing they had got themselves into had become too serious. It had implications which Derek was unwilling to address when the night before he had poured the tub juice back until he knew that Will would refuse to sleep with him, even if both of them wanted it.

He tried to remember when he had become ‘Will’ in his head, but even that made his hands shake.

“Chill, Derek,” he told himself. He moved so that he was lying on top of his sheets and could pull his fluffy blanket around him, and then reached for his laptop. If he put one of his safe movies on now, he might be able to stop his mind from going into overdrive.

Shrek and Donkey were in Duloc when Will flung the door open again, Bitty on his heels. Derek sighed. Apparently Will had opted for reinforcements instead of just getting some time outside.

“Chill,” he repeated, turning his head into the pillow in frustration.

“He sounds okay,” Bitty said in amusement. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

Derek looked up at him, blinking a couple of times as he registered that Bitty was calling  _ him  _ sweetheart. Chowder wasn’t even there, so there was no mistake. “I’m fine. It’s a hangover. It’s all chill.”

Bitty glanced at Will, his eyebrows pulled together in confusion, then back at Derek. “Well, you should eat, anyway. And maybe go and shower. It doesn’t remedy it to stay in bed all day, you know?”

Derek pushed his laptop down to the foot of his bed. Will frowned and took it off completely so that he could put it on the desk, the fight scene between Shrek and Lord Farquaad’s soldiers still playing. Bitty handed over a flask of soup and hovered around awkwardly as Derek started to eat.

“S’okay, Bits, I’m getting up now. You don’t have to stay.”

Bitty hummed. “Well, maybe next time don’t let yourself get so inebriated. Perhaps we need a patrol of some sort.”

“A… Patrol to stop me drinking?” Derek felt himself tense. Will was staring at him again, with that intensity in his eyes and Derek wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Bitty hummed thoughtfully. “We’ll figure something out. You feel better soon.” He was careful to not let the door close too loudly on his way out. Derek turned to Will, who flinched and looked away.

 

***Dex***

 

His hands shook as he walked over to his desk, determined to find something with which to distract himself. There was some coding homework he had to do, so he pulled that up on his laptop and tapped away until his mind was distracted by other things. He would think no more about Derek’s drinking. No more about that glint of relief in his eye the night before when Will had told him he was too drunk for them to share a bed. And certainly not about hovering to make sure that Derek didn’t spill soup or tea all over his bed.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when his phone went off with an incoming message. He carried on working through the code.

“Aren’t you going to check that?”

Will jumped. Derek’s voice was closer than he expected, and he looked up to find his roommate looking down at the notification of Chowder’s text message. Derek cautiously lifted a hand up to his shoulder, but Will pulled away with a jerk and turned back to the code, vaguely aware of Derek backing away. The last thing he wanted right now was to address the fact that he was falling for his d-partner, and clearly doing so a lot faster and further than the feeling was being reciprocated. He had to get the code perfect. That was more productive than vacuuming again, he tried to remind himself, but it was as if alarms were going off in his head. Something terrible was going to happen if he ignored them, but if he didn’t get the code perfect, then he would lose his scholarship and be out on the streets, with no degree, no money, and no access to his family.

His phone went off again, and then for a second time a beat later. No amount of self-control could stop him from glancing at the screen. The frog group chat. He let out a sigh and reached out to look at the messages, trying to ignore the squeak of triumph from across the room. Focusing on what Chowder wanted helped his mind relax, though there was still a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn’t help but think everything was about to fall to pieces again.

“Come on, Dex,” Derek said, in a soft voice. “I just looked, this volleyball match is about to start. We need to get ready.”

Will stared at his laptop for a moment, until Derek added, “Come on, if you want time to run the vacuum round.”

Will snapped his eyes up to meet Derek’s, and he knew that they were wide with shock. He held his breath as he awaited the inevitable chirping which was sure to come with Derek’s realisation. The thought of somebody knowing how anxious it made him to leave without tidying and cleaning first was horrible.

Derek just smiled, however. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it, and I won’t tell Chowder. I know you want us all to think you don’t have any superstitions, but I’m your d-partner. Do what you gotta do, man, just don’t mess up your game.”

There was a pause before Will nodded. It almost hurt to let him think that it was just a hockey ritual, but at least that was something which was acceptable to the team, all bets aside. If they knew how pathetic he really was, how irrational his thoughts were, and how obsessive and sick he became from things being out of place, Will would have to leave the team. None of them would want him any more; they would vote him out and turn him away. He wouldn't be welcome back at his foster family's house, and then where would he go? Derek made sure he had everything, pulled a sweater over his head, and then went to wait outside, oblivious to the fact that Will was fixed to his seat, unable to push away the spiraling thoughts about what would happen.

Everything hurt.

He couldn’t breathe.

This was it.

He was about to die.

“Will? Will, babe, look at me.”

There was something on his face. It itched. He tried to scratch it off.

“Okay. Okay, I won’t touch you. Just look at me, please. Can you hear me?”

The room started to take focus again. Derek was crouched before him, hands reached towards him, but not touching, as he talked. Will didn’t remember sitting on the floor, or Derek coming back into the room.

“Can you hear me?” Derek repeated. Will nodded. “Okay, Dexy, it’s okay. Has this happened before?”

Will started to shake his head, to tell him that it certainly would not be okay, but he switched to nodding midway through the action.

“What helps you? Can you tell me?”

_ Order. _

Will reached out for Derek’s hand and used it to pull himself to his feet. Derek was still looking at him in concern, but Will paid him no attention as he turned to his laptop and saved his work so that he could shut it down properly. Then, he pulled his bed sheets straight, pressing creases away with his hands. 

_ Laptop. Bed. Desk. Floor.  _

Next was tidying up the desk. He carefully turned the pens which had spun around in his pot, lining them up neatly. He angled his notebooks until they were square with the edge, and frowned as he switched two books around. 

_ Laptop. Bed. Desk. Floor.  _

The only things on the floor were his phone, where it must have fallen a moment before, and a couple of pieces of fluff. He brushed his phone off, making sure that it was still in perfect condition, before putting it in his pocket. The vacuum was in the cupboard across the hall. He went to get it so that he could get rid of the fluff, and any other dust and germs which were less obvious to his eye.

Derek didn’t leave completely, this time. He was clearly concerned that Will might break down again, but it was pretty annoying the way he hovered in the doorway as Will cleaned up the floor. There was a tenseness in his shoulders, as well, which didn’t relax until Will had finished. Derek’s sigh of relief at that point was audible.

“Let’s go and find C, okay?”

He was still using that soft, concerned tone of voice, as if he wasn’t the one who had only dragged himself out of bed half an hour ago. Still, Will followed him outside, and tried not to shake too much over the state of the den, or the state of Derek’s own desk and bed, or the fact that he was pretty sure Shrek had still been playing when Derek closed the lid of his laptop without bothering to turn it off.

Words were exchanged between Chowder and Derek. Will didn’t hear them. He just let them pull him along. Maybe volleyball would get him out of his own head.

* * *

Chowder sat between them. It helped to have a buffer between him and Derek, because he felt vulnerable enough to want nothing more than to hold the hand of the person he was very possibly falling in love with, and he could tell that Derek wasn’t in a place where that could mean anything yet. Will couldn't face the heartbreak.

He spent the time waiting for the game to begin scrolling through volleyball rules and game play on his phone, and as a result only noticed that the players were running onto the court because Chowder jumped to his feet to cheer. Will had just figured out that he didn’t need to pay attention to their jersey numbers to understand who was playing which position when the announcer started introducing the teams. He carried on reading.

_ “Caitlin Farmer!” _

Chowder was screaming again, loud enough to drown out Will’s sharp intake of breath. Surely he had misheard. Or perhaps it was nothing. Caitlin wasn’t an uncommon name — common enough that he hadn’t thought anything of Chowder’s Winter Screw date having that name — and neither was Farmer. It was just a strange coincidence. Will risked a glance up, just in time to see a girl with a dark braid nudge the girl next to her in a motion which filled Will with nostalgia and familiarity. The girl, number three, a tall girl with her brown hair pulled into a high ponytail, turned to scan the crowd. As soon as Will saw her face, even in profile, he felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

_ “Mom,”  _ he gasped.

Not his mom, he tried to remind himself. Caity. It was too difficult to believe it, though, not after so many years. Not when she looked so different to how she had as a twelve-year-old, and not when his brain was so convinced that he was staring at his own mother. His hands started to shake again. He rubbed his eyes and by the time he looked back again, she had her back to them again. She hadn’t even seen him.

Chowder was saying something to him, but all Will could do was mutter some garbled excuse and run.

* * *

He collapsed into his and Derek’s room, hands on knees as he sucked in ragged breaths. His heart was pounding from the sprint and for the second time that day he felt as if the world was ending. At some point he must have been crying, because there were streaks of tears down his cheeks, salt on his lips and his nose itched with the need to sniff. He stole a Kleenex from the packet on Derek’s desk to wipe his face, and then fell into his desk chair staring at the photos on his wall. His eyes barely grazed past his last high school hockey team, and though they settled on him and Dan at graduation for a moment, he flinched at the thought of who were missing from the picture. Finally, he looked at the third photo tacked to the wall. Two boys, two girls, all seven years old. He and Jess both had Mickey Mouse ears in their ginger hair, and their faces were pink and over-freckled. Dan’s hair was closer to golden under the California sun, but his sunburn was just as bad as his siblings’. Only Caitlin was tanned, her Sleeping Beauty dress actually suiting her, rather than clashing, though her dirty blonde locks were tangled and windswept. Will stared at the photo, trying to see the resemblance to the woman currently playing volleyball for Samwell. His Caity hadn’t even played volleyball. She was blonde. She had been the shortest in her grade.

And yet.

He remembered his mom and aunt raving about how much Caitlin looked like they had. At that age, looking like someone had meant hair and eye colour so the children hadn’t understood. Obviously Will and Jess looked like their dad with amber eyes, while Dan and Caitlin had blue eyes through the Farmer gene. Dan’s hair was like his dad’s, but Caitlin was blonde, too, and a mousier coloring at that instead of the deep brown with ruddy undertones which would make her resemble her mother and aunt. Their moms had smiled and shook their heads and pulled out the photo albums to show how they had been blonde when they were younger, and their hair only darkened during their teenage years. Now, Will tried to imagine it. Caitlin growing until she was taller than average, trading in softball for volleyball and becoming brunette. Then, both of them, despite over seven years without each other, making their way to Samwell for their lives to cross again.

Only for Will to run back to his dorm, freaking out over the ghost of his mother.

“You’re so stupid,” he told himself, as he angrily polished the top of his laptop with a duster, and put the laptop away in its case. But wasn’t it reasonable for him to be upset Caitlin was here? After all, he was a curse on his family. Everyone he was close to would die or leave him, and he dreaded the thought that Caitlin might fall into the first category.

_ She won’t if you fix things. Make everything perfect, and maybe you can save her. _

He pulled the bed sheets off his bed. He had to wash away the inadequacies. It was with a wince that he piled them into his laundry basket. The laundry room in his building was both too expensive, and held too much uncertainty about what the machines had last been used for, so he always took his washing to the Haus, but he still had more to do in here, and walking across campus would have to wait.

When his desk was washed down, and everything arranged as they should be, Will turned his attention on the floor. Although, there was something else bothering him. His eyes kept drifting back up to Derek’s side of the room, and despite the fact that he had promised not to touch his roommate’s things, Will felt sick to the stomach looking at Derek’s mess and thinking of all the germs which were there from his day being ill, and how Will had almost certainly contaminated it himself. For the moment, it looked like Derek was surviving today, and Will’s curse, but how long that would last was debatable.

_Fix this._

Will couldn’t help himself. He crossed the imaginary line he had drawn between their two halves, and wiped his duster over Derek’s laptop. His fingers itched to open it and shut it down properly, but that wasn’t allowed. He forced himself to live with plugging it in, and turning his attention to the bed. Derek’s pajama pants went into the laundry basket, followed by his bed linen. Then, Will shook out the duvet for good measure, so that any crumbs were on the floor to be cleaned up in a moment. He frowned at Tigger and the blanket. They needed a wash as well, but Derek had mentioned once that they were important to him when he was struggling with either dissociation or depression. Will was pretty sure texture was a big part of that, and would washing them taint them? Then again, they would have absorbed Will’s flaws, and those should be removed. Finally, he made his mind up and placed them carefully on the top of the rest of the dirty laundry. He went to dig out Derek’s spare sheets, once again thinking how useful it would be for him to have a second set, but it always seemed too expensive whenever he was on the verge of buying some. As he looked at them on the top shelf of the cupboard, though, his skin crawled. He couldn’t taint the new sheets, too. He closed the cupboard again, and went to have a shower.

After, he took out the spare covers and pursed his lips when he saw the creases in the fabric. Leaving them on the otherwise bare bed, Will went on a hunt for the ironing board, eventually finding it in Skye and Nikki’s room.

Finally, Derek’s bed was made up with crisp new sheets, his desk was as tidy as Will could get it without disturbing any of his notes, and the floor was spotless. The iron, its board, and the vacuum cleaner were tidied back away in the cupboard down the hallway, and Will collapsed, exhausted, onto Derek’s bed. Now that he felt calmer, he needed a moment to lie down before his brain caught up with the fact that he had to take the dirty laundry to the Haus so that he could sort his own bed out.

 

***Nursey***

 

The longer the game went on for, the more Derek started to worry. When Will had first run off, he had been annoyed, and snappy about the way Will had been acting all day, and then Chowder had all too quickly managed to distract him by bringing the conversation around to why he had drank so much if he wasn’t supposed to. It got very heavy very quickly. After they fell into silence, though, Derek had time to mull over everything that had been going on with Will. He came to the conclusion that it had been remiss of him not to chase after him when he left the volleyball match. Will probably needed someone, given everything that had happened that day. The part of him which was relieved to have talked a little about the situation with Chowder was wrong, Derek decided. It was Will he needed to talk to, and not just about himself.

As soon as the game was over, and Chowder was distracted by Farmer, Derek made his excuses and half-sprinted back to the dorm. His head still pounded, but at least the exertion, even combined with last night’s drinking, didn’t make him feel sick.

It took him by surprise to open the door to his room and look over to Will’s bed to find only a bare mattress, duvet and pillows piled up neatly at the foot. The laundry basket was as full as it ever got with Will around, and Derek’s own blanket and plush Tigger were on the top of it. He let out a sigh as his fist clasped around the toy’s paw. It really had been a long time since he last washed them. They were always the last things he thought about when it came to things that needed washing, even though they probably needed it almost as often as his sheets. His heart hurt as he turned around to look at Will crashed out on Derek’s bed, which was made up with new covers.

“Always looking out for me, aren’t you?” he said softly, and he crossed the room to press his lips to Will’s forehead. Will’s face contorted and he kicked out in his sleep before settling on his back. Derek sat down next to him, and leaned his head against the wall, groaning. Everything about this confused him. Having just spent the evening talking to Chowder, he wanted to say that he was just asexual, that he could push away any hints of feelings and he could live his life happy to be alone. Now, sat on the edge of his bed, Will’s head lolling onto the side of his thigh, all he could think about was the affection he felt for his roommate.

Will had always been so vigilant about consent that Derek knew not to get into bed with him while he was asleep. His options were to fish some bed linen back out the dirty laundry to make up Will’s bed, to go to the laundry room and do the washing, or to wake Will up. Derek only had the energy for one of those options.

“Will. Dex, wake up,” he said, fingers carding through short, red hair.

After what felt like an age of Will’s sleepy twitching, Derek finally drew out a grunt.

“Hey, sleepyhead. You need to let me know you’re actually awake and okay with it before I get into bed with you.”

“Wha—?” Will squeezed his eyes tight, and then cracked one open to look up at Derek.

“You stripped the beds.”

Will sat up, now, blinking hard and squinting around the room as he got his bearings. “I’m in your bed. I— Oh, shit. Fuck. I’m so sorry. I’ve got to do the washing.”

“I’m okay if you’re okay. We can do it tomorrow.”

“What? Nursey, no, what are you on about? I have to—”

_ “Will.” _

Derek put a hand on Will’s shoulder to keep him grounded, and waited until he looked him in the eye. “It’s okay. You need the sleep. I don’t want to mess about with laundry right now and I—” He glanced over at Tigger, as if the toy tiger might give him strength or advice. “I don’t want to be alone tonight. But if you really need to be, that’s okay, but you should stay here, I’ll just get some blankets on the couch or on your mattress.”

“No.” Will was frowning down at his knees. “Let’s just sleep here. We can— Yeah. We can deal with it in the morning.”

Derek hated the feeling of relief which coursed through him in that moment.

They undressed without moving from their spots on the bed, and then Derek insisted on taking Will’s clothes from him to fold up and add to the laundry basket.

“So you can fold.”

Derek turned back to Will with a smirk. “You’re awake enough to chirp me now? I should let Chowder know that you’re obviously fine because you’re attacking my habits.”

A shadow fell over Will’s face. “Right. Chowder. Fuck, I just— I don’t— Oh, God.”

The moment he started choking on his words, Derek slid back into bed with him and wrapped an arm around him until he fell against Derek's side. “It’s okay. You want me to tell him you’re sorry? You don’t have to explain or anything. We— I think we need to talk about some things, but we’ll deal with that in the morning, too, okay?”

When Will finally hummed in agreement, Derek texted Chowder, and got a reply almost immediately. The two of them settled on their backs, legs tangled together and Will’s head on Derek’s chest. Derek suspected that Will was reading his texts as well, though he didn’t know with any certainty until partway trying to convince Chowder not to come around to their dorm, when their friend stopped replying. It wouldn’t be good for him to turn up and walk in on them cuddled up together, so Derek was unnerved by the silence.

“Maybe he doesn’t believe I’d really say it was chill,” Will suggested, after Derek had checked his phone for the fifth time. Derek sighed and tapped out another message. Two minutes later, there was still no response and Will tapped his hand against Derek’s stomach to get his attention. “Pass my phone.”

It was easier to relax after Will had messaged the chat with the three of them in, even though Chowder still hadn’t replied. Derek finally put his phone down under his pillow and loosened his grip on Will just enough to let him roll over.

Will’s snores filled the room by the time Chowder replied.

 

***Dex***

 

The next morning, Will, awoke to the sound of Derek sighing.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” he mumbled into the pillow.

Derek jumped at the sound of his voice, but when he lowered his gaze to him, his expression was his usual nonchalant chill. “Bro. I have never, in all my life and four years of boarding school, met anyone who fidgets as much in his sleep as you.”

“Just be glad I’m not one of those sleepwalking murderers,” Will joked, though there was a sickness in his stomach as soon as the words left his mouth.  _ How stupid do you have to be, William? Speaking words can make them become truth. How are you going to cancel out that one? _

“I don’t know, man.” Derek shrugged. “Death by elbows in the chest. I’m sure it’s possible.”

“Sorry.”

Derek’s eyes were soft, and Will was almost able to forget that he had some serious work to do to contradict his ridiculous joke. “It’s okay. Are you ready to talk now?” Derek brushed his fingers across Will’s cheek, concern creeping into his features again. Will leaned into his palm and hummed.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “For yesterday. I— You were sick and I wasn’t helping you. I just freaked.”

Derek shook his head. “You helped a lot. I shouldn’t have even been sick. You were right about that.” He frowned, and then sat up. “I don’t think we should have this conversation in bed.”

They moved their desk chairs into the no-man’s land of the middle of their room, and sat either side of that imaginary line between the two halves, their hands clasped to bridge the gap. Will stared at Derek. He wasn’t sure where to start.

As if he sensed the hesitation, Derek gave his hands a reassuring squeeze, and spoke. “It’s okay, and I don’t blame you, but you did scare me yesterday.”

Air caught in Will’s throat.  _ “I  _ scared  _ you?”  _ he asked, incredulously.

“What the fuck?” Despite his words, Derek’s voice was a monotone. “Yes, you scared me. You had a panic attack, Will. You completely flipped out about the fact that I was hungover, and you seemed to have it in your head that it was life-threatening or something, but you wouldn’t listen to reason and even if I was actually sick, it shouldn’t freak you out that much.”

If there was any room to hide, Will would have retracted in on himself. Instead he stared at the wheels on Derek’s chair and mumbled another “sorry.”

Derek shifted on his seat. There was that sigh again. Will braced himself for Derek to announce that he was tired of this; that he was tired of them trying to act as if they could be friendly towards each other.

“Will you stop that? It’s not your fault if that’s where your brain goes. Okay? It’s not your fault, but, Will, I think you need to accept when something isn’t right. When you need to get help.”

Will tugged his hands out of Derek’s grip, glaring. “Don’t.” He couldn’t stand the pity in Derek’s eyes.

“Please, you need to—”

“Don’t fucking tell me what I need. Not everyone can afford therapy just because they thought something that doesn’t make sense. I looked it up. That sort of stuff is normal. People think irrationally all the time. It doesn’t mean I need to take out another loan just to be able to throw it straight down the drain.”

“I think you’re kidding yourself if you think what happened yesterday is healthy.”

“I don’t want to talk about this any more.” Will was aware that he was starting to sound like a petulant child, but he couldn’t bring himself to open up about the ridiculous thoughts which had been driving him the day before: those same ridiculous thoughts which invaded his mind every day.

“Okay,” Derek breathed. “Can I talk to you about me a sec, though? About— Sort of about us?”

So here it came. He had fallen too hard for his roommate and made things too obvious and too weird. Derek had to end things, for the good of himself, and of the team.

“I talked to Chowder last night about it. Not about you!” He added the last sentence hastily. “I just said that I had sort of been seeing a guy, and that I slept with him, and that I don’t know if I want to be sleeping with him.”

Will let out a sigh. “You don’t have to stress about that. I don’t want to sleep with you unless you’re one hundred percent sure. You don’t  _ owe  _ me anything.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean I don’t know how I feel at all. I want you so badly. I want sex. But I keep thinking what if it’s not  _ me  _ wanting it? What if it’s my meds or— or something in my head that isn’t really me?”

Will didn’t know how to react. It felt as if that meant he might have a chance, but on the other hand he didn’t want to get his hopes up. “Then that’s not one hundred percent sure. What did your doctor say?”

“About what?”

“The medication affecting your sex drive.”

“I haven’t asked.” The way Derek shrugged was infuriating.

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll either say that’s normal or they’ll start me on something else and the ones I’m on are fine.”

Will frowned.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Derek added.

“Well, we’ve not got anything left to talk about then,” Will said. He pushed his chair back, but Derek reached out and took his hand again, causing the chair to swerve a little. Will dug his feet into the floor to twist himself back into place.

“I am sorry, Will. The drinking— I won’t promise it won’t happen again, but it won’t happen because I’m trying to avoid sex.”

Will felt all the irritation drain out of him. The voice in his head was still reminding him that he was obviously being dumped right now, but he couldn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to Derek’s forehead. “Thank-you. I’m sorry too. Both because you thought you had to resort to that in the first place, and for yesterday. I don’t want to make things more difficult for you figuring stuff out, so I’ll try and give you more space.” Derek raised an eyebrow, so Will backtracked. “Not more  _ space  _ necessarily, because we live together and play together and that would be impossible, but— But like I wish you’d say that you wouldn’t mix your medication with alcohol at all, but I’m not going to ask that of you or expect you to consider it because it’s not my place, and how I feel about you— It’s less important than you being able to work out what you really want.”

 

***Nursey***

 

_ How I feel about you— _

 

Derek might never breathe again. He was so stunned that he was right, that he forgot to be happy that Will wasn’t just using him, or confused that he could pronounce his affection so easily, or guilty that he was going to break his heart. The concept of Will having actual feelings for him was too wild.

“Hey.” Will’s voice was quiet, and he scooted forward again so that he could cup Derek’s cheek. “It’s okay. All the time you need. Would you rather we just be friends? For now? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Derek stared at Will’s t-shirt. What  _ did  _ he want? He ran his conversation with Chowder back in his head. Perhaps the best thing was to have nothing until he was certain he wanted something. “I— Yeah. I can't stand the thought of you waiting around for me. You should— You deserve to start to get over me before it'd be a harder heartbreak.”

Disappointment flashed in Will's eyes, but he said nothing. He nodded and his hand fell away from Derek’s face. “I'm going to shower.”

“Okay. I— Thanks, Will.”

The look he got in response told him that Will was willing to give him anything he asked for. Something about that was unbelievably painful. Will headed for the bathroom, but stopped at the door. “We can do this right? Actually be friends? Without all the…” he waved his hand about, vaguely referring to their cuddle sessions and shared kisses. “Or without it just being for C’s sake.”

That wasn’t a question Derek really knew the answer to. Their relationship was all or nothing; rocky but intense; everything deep but lacking in intimacy. They had never been friends. They were just people who hung out together despite miles between their opinions, and they still fought despite their growing mutual understanding of each other. The need in Will's gaze, though, was too strong for Derek to deny. “Of course we can,” he promised.


End file.
